The South West

laying foundations for the future

Here in the South West Fostering Foundation team we are focussed on working together with foster carers and other professionals, to get the very best care and support for children and young people to help them to flourish and achieve their dreams, aspirations and full potential in life.

The whole team is committed to supporting foster carers to care for young people and children and ensure that they can remain in their placements for as long as they need to. We have an exceptional record for providing long term stable placements which in turn means that our children and young people are making excellent educational and social achievements. Our social workers have smaller than average caseloads which ensures that your supervising social worker can provide you with high levels of support and advice.
The team bring a wealth of experience to the task and have a real passion for imparting their knowledge and skills to foster carers to enable them to become highly trained and knowledgeable with a toolkit to support children and young people who for a variety of reasons can no longer reside with their birth families.

Our work is based in using a therapeutic approach encompassing attachment theory and utilising PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy). We also ensure that children and young people’s voices are heard with them helping us to better understand what they need and want whilst in care. Our children and Young People have their own interview panel for prospective foster carers as well as being part of consultations about the agency.

We have our own therapeutic practitioner – Donna who specialises in play therapy – she has a wonderful clinic in our office in Tavistock and we continue to see some real positive changes in the children and young people she is working with.

We offer comprehensive training both face to face and online for our foster carers as well as peer to peer ‘buddying’, activity days and carer support groups.

We care for our foster carers sons and daughters too – as fostering impacts on the whole family – they have their own separate support group and enjoy several activities a year – where they can all support one another.

We have recently achieved a Good rating from Ofsted – which was really a reflection on how hard our foster carers work to love, care and support the children and young people.
We are a small independent agency with a real ‘family’ ethos – where we all know each other. We like to think of ourselves as a unique ‘boutique’ agency!

Based in Tavistock we cover a wide geographical area – Plymouth, Cornwall and West Devon.

Want to learn more – click on the enquiry button or if you are in the area pop in for an informal chat – there’s always a cup of tea or coffee on offer! Our fellow foster carers are also available to talk about their experiences of fostering and being part of The Fostering Foundation South West.

Useful Downloads

Below are some useful documents for existing carers and children in care that you may find useful.